Free Bound by Donna Jo Napoli Page B

chances with passing oxcarts, no matter how many hours they might shorten her journey.
    She went to the doorway of the temple and shielded her eyes from the bright sunlight. An old man sat on the steps eating a bowl of ox intestines. She recognized him by the ringworm on his head—he was one of Yao Wang's patients. When he saw her, he lifted a string of Buddha beads tucked in his waist sash, shook them at her, and pointed into the square. He was pointing at a crowd pressed around Yao Wang and his cart. But, oh, this was not the usual type of crowd. There were two men in uniform, and people were talking angrily. Sheng showed his teeth and growled at a man who held him at bay with a bamboo stick.
    Xing Xing ran to Sheng and threw her arms around the dog's neck. She looked back defiantly at the man with the stick.
    The man withdrew his stick. "He's not a real doctor—a real  zhong yi,"  he said loudly. "If he were a real  zhong yi,  he would send his patients to a state run pharmacy for their medicine. He's nothing but a  lang zhong.  He costs little," said the man, looking around with a challenge in his eyes, "because he's a quack. A wandering quack. A real doctor is thin because he works hard. This man is a load of blubber who hasn't done an honest day's work in his life. Look!" He picked up one of Yao Wang's medicine jars and held it under the nose of one of the officials. "See? There's no national stamp on this jar. No trademark. These are unregulated drugs—phony drugs. How is an honorable man like me supposed to run a decent pharmacy if charlatans are allowed to sell their junk on the streets? I've already lost a week's worth of business because of him."
    The crowd of onlookers didn't say anything. Xing Xing recognized several of them as having been patients of Yao Wang that very day.
    The official took the jar from the pharmacist's hand and examined it. He rubbed his cheek as he turned the jar this way and that.
    The second official leaned over Yao Wang's cart and touched jar after jar. "Some of these jars have different labeling from others," he said. He picked up one of the jars that Xing Xing had written on and tapped on the character Xing Xing had added to each jar in place of the awkward tiger character that had been there before. It was the character that Xing Xing had seen on all the jars in Master Tang's house. "And here's the national trademark."
    The pharmacist shut his lips tight, and his cheeks puffed out so big, he looked like he would pop. "He put that trademark on himself! It's not under the glaze; it's on top. You can tell! He did it himself! This is even worse than being a charlatan. This is a crime. According to the Code, he should be beaten with bamboo. Many blows. At least sixty. No, seventy! I'll bare his buttocks myself and hold him down for you."
    Men could die from infections in bloodied bottoms, everyone knew that.
    "It's my fault, not Yao Wang's." The words burst from Xing Xing in a high squeak.
    Everyone looked at her. They whispered to one another. Some of them giggled.
    Xing Xing felt the blood drain from her face. She thought she might faint. She leaned on Sheng for support.
    "Yao Wang?" said the second official, raising an eyebrow. "That's your name?"
    '"Yao Wang' is her pet name for me," said Yao Wang with a sheepish look. "You know how foolish things can start with a child."
    "Well," said the first official, rubbing hard at his cheek, "speak up, girl."
    "I scraped off the words and wrote them again. I was trying to make them pretty. I didn't know about the trademark."
    "Are you claiming a pitiful little girl like you knows calligraphy?" asked the second official.
    Yao Wang's eyes instantly brightened. "She's been learning—but slowly. Compare the lettering." He held out two jars, one with the ugly lettering and one with Xing Xing's writing. "Which is that of a state representative and which is that of a mere girl?"
    The second official, the one who had tapped his finger on the